RADIO
After 11 months, 46 tournaments, and tens of thousands of words documenting my thoughts on golf courses from Tokyo to Paris, we've reached the end of the 2023 PGA campaign. We've had our fair share of triumph and heartbreak at Flag Hunting over the course of the season, but above all else, 2024 has once again blessed me with the opportunity to do what I love alongside content creators I've looked up to for many many years (shoutouts to Joe, Joe, Byron and Spencer). No matter where this journey takes me in the years to come, I'd like to thank each and every reader, follower, or fan for being an essential part of this endeavor – I hope I've been able to provide as much value to you in your weekly process as your support given to me.
Before we officially put a bow on this wild golf season, there is one final score to settle in the Bahamian Islands. 20 of the top 39 players in the World have made the trip to Albany for this year-end celebration, and for many among the game's best, Tiger's Invitational is a golden chance to break a winless drought, capitalize on a rich vein of form, or provide a launching pad into the quickly-looming 2025 campaign.
From some of golf's hottest up-and-comers to the golden standard in today's game, the stars are out this week and the PGA Tour is sending us off with a bang! Here's everything you need to know about Albany GC and the 2024 Hero World Challenge!
The Golf Course
Albany Golf Club - Par 72; 7,449 yards
Past Champions
- 2023: Scottie Scheffler (-20) over Sepp Straka
- 2022: Viktor Hovland (-16) over Scottie Scheffler
- 2021: Viktor Hovland (-18) over Scottie Scheffler
- 2019: Henrik Stenson (-18) over Jon Rahm
- 2018: Jon Rahm (-20) over Tony Finau
- 2017: Rickie Fowler (18) over Charley Hoffman
You wouldn’t initially think of a 20-man, year-end exhibition as an event set to boast a particularly strenuous venue, but in terms of yardage, Albany is one of the longer courses we see on the annual schedule. At 7,449 yards, only Torrey Pines, Augusta National, and Muirfield Village can boast a higher scorecard yardage, and notably, Albany reaches this lofty figure despite the presence of five Par 3’s and two drivable Par 4’s within its routing.
This elite length hasn't necessarily translated into U.S. Open-esque scores however, as the five Par 5’s (and aforementioned drivable Par 4’s), at Albany will provide these players with ample opportunities to rack up birdies and eagles. In fact, nearly half (8/18) of the holes on-site have conceded birdie or better rates of 30% in the history of this tournament, and only three holes on the property would be categorized as “Bogey-Avoidance Opportunities”, or holes in which par would net at least 1/10th of a stroke to the average field.
In four of the the last five years, the scoring average here at Albany has sat in the 60's – with the only exception being the 2022 iteration which featured two days of heavy winds and a Saturday slog of mud-balls that drastically raised the variance players encountered on approach shots from the fairway. Without severe intervention from Mother Nature, I’d anticipate winning scores to approach the 20-under mark this week. So despite the daunting scorecard length here in New Providence, this is no week to be weighing Bogey Avoidance or Scrambling.
One reason for the easier scoring conditions here at Albany lies in the forgiveness it affords these players off the tee. Historic Driving Accuracy rates have sat well above the Tour Avg at Albany: (70% vs 62%), and these percentages are not propped up by guys clubbing down off the tee – as only three holes will routinely see players incentivized to play for position with a fairway wood or driving iron.
Although the fairways do provide some fairly generous landing areas off of most tees, players who cannot keep their drives within the rough lines will face a lot of uncertainty in these Bahamian native areas. Wayward drives here will face everything from rocky outcrops to dense native grass, and unnavigable lowland brush. In this way, Albany plays quite comparably to the desert courses we see in Las Vegas and Scottsdale every year: generally forgiving to most driving profiles, but a single mistake can have you staring down the barrel of a sizable penalty.
As such, most of the driving metrics I’ll be looking at this week revolve around keeping the ball in play off the tee (Fairways Gained, Good Drive %, etc.). Although Albany’s fairways are quite forgiving, I’d rather lean into safer driving profiles that are capable of avoiding the many pitfalls, and lean even harder into the most important facet in the Bahamas this week: iron play.
We touched on a lot of this in the initial course specs, but with five Par 3’s measuring over 180 yards, five reachable Par 5’s, and four Par 4’s that all measure over 470 yards, it is conceivable to project players to have an approach shot from beyond 175 yards on 14/18 holes here at Albany.
If you line up the list of past champions, it’s quite easy to find a through line in their games, as Scheffler, Hovland, Stenson, Rahm, Fowler, and Matsuyama have all proven themselves as elite mid/long-iron players throughout their careers.
When you combine the threat of wind and some of the smallest green complexes we’ll see through the fall swing (4,500 square feet on average), it’s easy to identify elite ball-striking as a key element in determining this week's champion. I’ll be using proximity splits from 175 yards and beyond as one of the cornerstones of my modeling this week, and with the bevy of ball-striking talent present in this field, I’d go as far as to say that if a player doesn’t rate out as an elite long-term iron player from this range, I have no interest in betting him in the outright market.
As we move closer to the green complexes themselves at Albany, we begin to lose a bit of predictiveness when it comes to projecting success at this venue. Viktor Hovland took this title in both 2021 and 2022 despite ranking 191st and 124th on the PGA Tour in SG: Around the Greens in those respective seasons, and despite his many successes in the game of golf, you would hardly consider 2019 Champion Henrik Stenson as one of the preeminent scramblers or putters in the sport.
The tight, grainy fairway cuts in Albany's greenside surrounds are certainly capable of making even the top players in the planet look foolish, but 1s is the case with many of the PGA Tour’s other preeminent birdie parties, the simple fact of the matter at Albany is if you’re having to routinely scramble from out of position, you’re not likely to be keeping pace with the top of the leaderboard anyways. Putting will play enough of a factor to look at some long-term splits on Bermudagrass, but many of my traditional short-game stats will be accounted for in more general metrics like Par 5 Scoring and SG: Tee-to-Green.
One final thing to keep in mind when assessing the field this week has been the consistent through-lines we've seen from past champions at the Hero from a recent form standpoint. Four of the last five tournaments here in Albany have given us a European champion (Hovland x2; Stenson; Rahm), and when you consider the fact that the European Tour season doesn't traditionally end until the end of November, it's easy to come to the conclusion that these competitive lead-in reps put them at an advantage compared to many of the big-name Americans who use the fall swing as more of a rest period. Notably, each of the three aforementioned Euros recorded a top-five finish over the course of their fall schedule leading up to their respective triumphs.
Going even further back, we find that the other three previous champions here had a similar run of form prior to lifting the trophy in New Providence. Rickie Fowler recorded a runner-up finish in his previous start in Mayakoba before winning here in 2017, Bubba Watson had a very successful fall stint in Asia before winning here in 2015 (finishes of 3rd, 15th, and 35th), and Hideki Matsuyama did a few better than that: recording three wins and a runner-up across Asia in four fall starts before taking down the 2016 Hero World Challenge.
If elite long-iron play has been exhibit 1A in the playbook of projecting success at Albany GC, lead-in form has not been far behind. Although last year's Champion, Scottie Scheffler, bucked many of these trends with his triumph, the two names that followed him on the leaderboard (Sepp Straka and Justin Thomas), each corroborated these historical trends with top finishes across the U.S. and Europe that fall. I see no reason to steer away in 2025, so as tough as it is to fade names like Sam Burns, Russell Henley, or Wyndham Clark, I'll take my chances against anyone without a proper Fall CV.
Key Stats Roundup:
- Elite, long-term Iron Play (Key emphasis on Proximity splits from 175+)
- Signs of life over the course of the fall - whether it be on the PGA Tour, the DP World Tour, the President's Cup, etc.
- Key Scoring Stats: Birdie Chances Created, Birdie or Better Percentage, Par 5 Scoring
- Total Driving (small lean to accuracy > distance)
- SG: Putting - particularly long-term on Bermuda surfaces
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Hero World Challenge Betting Card
Justin Thomas (11-1)
Justin Thomas EAGLED 18 for a fantastic second-round 64 to move two back of the ZOZO Championship lead. 🔥
📺 @ZOZOChamp round 3 live at 11P ET on Golf Channel pic.twitter.com/mgoqFzCqQk
— Golf Channel (@GolfChannel) October 25, 2024
A horribly cold putter held may have held him back from a slump-breaking title in Japan last month, but there is still much to be excited about in Justin Thomas's future prospects. Over those four days at Narashino, Thomas lapped the field from tee-to-green: gaining over four more shots (14.32), than the second-best player in that category for the week, Nico Echevarria (10.28), and recorded the best approach week (+8.04), that we've seen from the Kentuckian in nearly four years (+9.5 at the 2021 WGC-Workday).
Notably, Thomas captured the 2021 PLAYERS Championship in his very next start following that torrid iron performance at Concession Club, and here in Albany, it's difficult to find a player in this field with a more proven track record. J.T. has recorded top-five finishes at the Hero World Challenge in four consecutive starts dating back to 2019 -- including a solo-third just 12 months ago. And since then, J.T. has seemingly recaptured many of the strengths that initially propelled him to first-class status in this game: ranking in the 93rd percentile on Tour in Strokes Gained per Shot from beyond 200 yards, and tops in this field in Strokes Gained: Around the Greens.
With these two elite tools back in the toolkit, as well as a driving profile that should be tailor-made for Albany's forgiving fairways (4th in Driving Distance), Thomas presents the best combination of course fit, incoming form, and value on the betting board. I see him as Scottie Scheffler's biggest threat this week, and at over 4x the outright number, I'll gladly take a shot at the former World No. 1 in his bid for a momentum-building victory in front of his beloved idol.
Sungjae Im (15-1)
Chip-IM birdie. 🔥
Sungjae Im comes up clutch to maintain the lead.pic.twitter.com/rCzh57YTxL
— Golf Digest (@GolfDigest) September 28, 2024
Speaking of a player looking to pay off a sustained run of form, Sungjae Im has spent much of 2024 positioned as one of the game's most metronomic entities. Although it's been over three years since the 26-year-old found the winner's circle Stateside, Sungjae's 12 top-20 finishes (nine of which coming in Majors/Elevated/Playoff events), is as impressive a catalog as you'll find outside of the top few names in the sport.
In fact, over his last ten starts, Im has showcased a skillset that not even superstars like Scottie Scheffler, Xander Schauffele, or Rory McIlroy can match: gaining over one stroke per tournament in each of the four strokes gained categories. He ranks right alongside Scottie Scheffler as this field's preeminent marksman with a long-iron in hand: rating out in the 90th percentile or above in Proximity to the Hole, Strokes Gained per Shot, and GIR% from 200+ yards, and sits as a top five entity in Total Driving, Birdie or Better Percentage, and Scrambling.
This pristine statistical profile points to a player on the verge of a massive breakthrough, yet oddsmakers have priced him as a relative afterthought in this 20-man field. I still have the utmost faith in the Korean No. 1 to close the deal on a Sunday afternoon (sixth-best R4 scoring average), and an eight-place finish in Albany on debut gives credence to my model's affinity for his fit here. If we continue to get discounts on Sungjae heading into the New Year, I suspect this won't be the last write-up I'll be doing on the former top-debutante.
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